@Susan38 If you've made that many, you must have one ready to sample? How's it taste?
I just looked at my spreadsheet and it turns out I've made sbout 20 salted curd cheeses over the past few years. Farmhouse cheddar, stirred curd cheddar, several different Jack recipes, several different Colby recipes...all that called for salting the drained curd prior to pressing.
First ones were without pH monitoring, and using New England Cheesemaking (NEC) mesophilic culture, and all turned out too sour, dry and crumbly. Next ones I used pH strips which with those I found out I was overshooting the final pH during pressing. Final ones using pH meter I was able to monitor throughout, most hitting pH targets for ripening, cooking, draining, etc. and then chasing the pH during pressing.
Final results/tasting had a lot to do with what happened during the entire process, not just during pressing. I've posted all my results thus far...but bottom line is that the most successful ones were the ones I pulled from pressing to try and hit pH, which had I left it to press per recipe time guidelines would have tanked the pH too low I'm thinking. Although a few I pulled per pH but in hindsight think they were a bit "underpressed" like my last Gouda, which tasted great but had small holes due to curds not properly knitting together.
After using NEC's mesophilic culture and learning it was a "fast acidifier" I looked into other cultures and started choosing the "moderate" and "slow acidifiers" and it has helped quite a bit with final results and increased pressing times. Flora danica and Kazu have both been much slower acidifiers for me in my cheesemaking environment than the NEC mesophilic.
I would think waiting to brine instead of salting the curds would make the issue worse as nothing would inhibit my ph nose dive... I have this issue with almost all our cheese a gradual drop followed by a nose dive in the press. Even our cultured mozzarella does this after draining the curds.
I agree, as that has been my experience. Consistently.
I'll aim for the higher ph for starting to press next time.
I would aim for higher pH throughout the process, not waiting till press time. Those pH curves start out at the beginning and speed up toward the end, so keeping the pH at the higher end of target at the start might influence the pH toward the end? My experience thus far anyway.
I got confused because I make the "same temperature washed curd cheese" from her book and call it "Colby" because I thought that's what it tasted like.
I think the recipe you are referring to is more of a Havarti or St. Paulin style, based on her introductory discussion for that recipe in her "Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking" book?
So anyway getting back to the issue at hand, for example let's look at Caldwell's "cool water washed curd" recipe in her "Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking" book. I believe it's close to a Jack recipe. It calls for salting the curds after draining. At draining, target pH is 5.7 to 5.8. Then you salt. Then at Mold and Press, final cheese pH goal is 5.4 to 5.5. So you see there is acknowledgement in the recipe that pH will drop during pressing, even with salted curd. I think the issue at hand is that the recipe calls for pressing for 12 to 24 hours to reach this goal pH, when in my experience it takes 4-6 hours at most to reach that pH. I am looking for an explanation as to what is happening to make the pH drop between salting and pressing, and more importantly why that pH drop is happening so much more quickly in my cheesemaking experiences as compared to the recipe guideline times. I believe there are several of us that are struggling with this issue, and thanks Knittingjidda for bringing the subject up again!